Overcoming Internal Resistance

02-11-2013, 04:38 PM

I encounter a lot of resistance in myself when doing activities where I won't see any real impact for a while (even thought I know it will benefit me long term). Some examples are: promoting a new venture, practicing guitar, exercise etc.

I'm trying to think more strategically about overcoming this kind of resistance. It's not a question of GTD practicalities (I've got appropriate reminders etc), it's more a motivation question for me. The two tricks that I've found most helpful are:
1. to try and give myself as much data to use as feedback about the process, even though no "outcome" will arrive for some time. For example, tracking my own sales activity helped me overcome the resistance to selling.
2. Committing myself to others as a motivation. For example, I really felt motivated to practice guitar more when I agreed to start gigging!

I'd be interested to hear others' experiences of meeting internal resistance... How do you overcome it?

I'd be interested to hear others' experiences of meeting internal resistance... How do you overcome it?

Unfortunately the most effective method is to "just do it". Once I've overcome the inertia to start the ball rolling it usually gets easier. The act of doing often leads to ideas of more interesting ways of achieving the goal of the activity. Or a realisation that I would be better off abandoning the activity altogether.

Also having the 30,000ft+ levels defined properly helps. If you realise how your humdrum activity directly or indirectly links up to your life purpose, it tends to improve motivation....

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I have a very short 'these are urgent actions' list. Putting one action in there (at Weekly review) that moves me forward on a project that I'm resisting (exercise was one). And not putting many more in that short list until that important action is done.... Yes it's difficult, but immensely fulfilling when you feel the boulder finally inching forward. Best wishes!

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One other thing you could do is to find Mark Forster's book, Get everything done and still have time to play. The book is all about overcoming resistance and some of the tips and strategies he uses can certainly be used with a GTD list.

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Once you get momentum and you take small steps, you will start to see the snowball effect.

I see resistance is normal. You want to do something or achieve a goal, but at the same time you have a moral dilemma. Do I pursue this now? Or push it on the back burner?

We've all shared problems of motivation, time, resources. What really got me inspired was the book ReWork from Jason Freid over at 37 signals.

I got a tip last week, about handling paper that's sitting on your desk. Each time you find something on your desk and you don't do it. Punch a hole in it or draw a small circle on the sheet each time you don't take action.

If you find enough holes on the sheet, you know that it's finally time do something about it.

Regards,
Ian

It changed the way I thought about producitvity in the office. I run a virtual office and this really upped my game.

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In one of my bands, we had a member who adored being on stage, and booked gigs without consulting any of us. This was a very smart move. Our initial anger and anxiety gave way to long practices and professionalism. Without his gumption, I'd still be plucking away in parent's basement.

When your inertia and anxiety is getting the best of you, hire or find someone to kick your a@@. It's bitter medicine, but it works.

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1. Clarify your expectations. If you made a career out of your most liked ever thing, don't expect endless bliss from your hobbies! What exactly does and doesn't "winning" mean to you? Include feelings.

2. A decision is also a fare-well. Be clear and upfront to yourself that by deciding for one thing, you decided against at least 5 other things. Be harsh to yourself about that in order to get though to your self with the message. Wether you are a type for 2 or 10 activities, the basic principle remains. Do your thing and put all else away, out of your life. Make space for the stuff you want to engage in. Why do you even still have that TV standing around there? To shoot down your evening when you are most vulnerable?

-- Exercise is key. When you're physically in shape, it's easier to get the
motivation to exercise more and also easier to get the motivation to do
mental work and other stuff, I find.

-- Find fun and/or useful ways to exercise. I do learning activities (reading or singing)
during some types of exercise. Some of my exercise is to go places (walking, cycling).
Signing up for scheduled exercise classes can be a lot more motivating
than exercising alone at home.

-- Choose a simple, easy first step. One of the books (maybe by David Allen,
maybe somebody else) suggested changing into exercise clothes, because then
you start feeling like exercising. For other activities there may be other first
steps, like getting out a nice letter-opener; or standing up, walking around
in a circle, and saying "Now I'm going to ...". The tiny bit of exercise
increases blood flow and makes it easier to get the motivation. Saying something
out loud also helps.

-- Give yourself rewards. One of my problems is: I earn rewards but am too
busy to take them! So I usually try to choose rewards that don't take much time.
A reward can be a simple thing like looking at the pictures in a particular book.
If you've chosen it as a reward for a particular activity, then it will feel like a reward.

-- Positive reinforcement: one definition of this is pleasant things that happen
during (not after) the activity. For example, listening to music while doing something.

-- Divide the project into parts and plan a celebration after finishing each part.
Look at what you've done and feel good about that.

-- At the beginning of the day do something difficult you've been putting off; then do easier things the rest of the day. (see the book "Eat that Frog!".)

-- Set reasonable expectations for new habits: so your overall day will be somewhat
better than before, but not unrealistically totally changed. Once those new
habits are well ingrained, then you can move forward further to improve some more
habits. Trying to change too much at once may be too overwhelming. (according
to the book Willpower by Baumeister and Tierney.)

-- The Now Habit at Work by Fiore says to set a goal of doing new, good habits for
30 days. Preferably 30 consecutive days, but if you mess up one day, then you just
don't count that day, and continue counting from where you'd gotten to the day before. I really like this method! It's encouraging, not discouraging.

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http://zenhabits.net/zm/
I'm in a relatively new job (3 months) and that means coming to terms with a lot of things (jargon, organisational culture, aligning to corporate norms (and breaking some), getting to know new team members, some local and some remote) and in all this, as usual, deliver valuable work.

I'm no newbie to this, I celebrate my half century next month, but for some reason this post worked for me. It helped me see (reminded me?) that everything, no matter how daunting, is mostly a series of small steps, and each of these mean relatively little on their own.

Maybe this perspective can apply to internal resistance. It did to me with my to do list each day. Every item is a small step on the way to the next one. Just complete the next step.

This is probably not completely aligned to your point but I am just a tad amazed that this seems to have worked for me at 50!